She's a daydream believer
by MadameMercuryMays
Summary: Alternate POV chapters between Alex and Gene, exploring their thoughts and feelings about Fenchurch, and of course one another. Yes, there will be Galex, but all in good time people ;  Reviews and feedback please! I'll be uploading a chapter a day.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I opened my eyes slowly, hoping upon hope that I'd be home. Molly would be sitting downstairs watching some brightly coloured animated creature on CBBC, her Rice Crispies snap, crackle and popping away.

Hope is a fickle thing. Hope can ultimately make or destroy a person. Hope is all I have, no matter what the consequences are.

There is was, the painfully familiar surroundings. The old TV, (a blizzard of white noise as ever) the old HI-FI, the old vulgar sofa, even the room smelt old, I was beginning to feel the same way.

I pull myself up out of the almost comforting grasp of the sofa and turn off the TV.

Silence.

I was always told as a child that silence was golden, no doubt a lot of you were told the same thing at some point in your life, be it from your own parents, a teacher, a self righteous neighbour or a particularly swotty flat mate at university, whatever, silence is not golden. Silence is the most lonely thing in existence. Somehow it drains you of life itself, you become a mute, in mind and voice, it takes a huge amount of energy to break it, and unfortunately, I'm exhausted.

I flick on the kettle and make an instant. Oh how I longed for some sort of latte or cappuccino. Nescafe would have to do. Time to fire up the toaster...

"Time to fire up the toaster?"

Yes. Yes I really did just say that. Why I have no idea.

He really is quite infuriating with his own little foibles. I can't have known him more than what? A month? And already I can't live with him.

"You can't live without him though can you?"

What can I do? He's the only thing that seems real about this place. He seems more real than me. I can hate him one minute for his sexist, pig headed, ignorant right wing views, then the next love him for the very same reason. No not love, that's definitely the wrong word. Appreciate? Empathise? I don't know, it's too early. He gets the job done, and I admire him for that. I just wish he wasn't so brutal. Last week a lad, not older than 17 got caught in possession of a joint, sitting in a park. I mean, I know he was in the wrong, but the poor kid didn't need his shoes soaked in the sick bucket, and nor should he have had to get two stitches in his head from him and Ray playing pong with him in the locker room. It was a spliff for God's sake!

See what I mean? One minute I'll be singing his praises, the other damning him to hell.

I draw open the curtains, the gray clouds and the blue sky mixing together like the contents of a gypsy's glass ball.

"Go on then, tell me, what have I got in store for me today?"

*A** while later***

"Chris?"

"Yes Guv?"

" Is my name Maple Syrup?"

"No Guv."

"Stop treating me like a sap then."

"Yes Guv."

"Ahhh, Bolly knickers, nice of you to drop by."

"Morning Guv."

"There's this wonderful invention called alarm clocks, don't they have them where you're from?"

"Yes... And a lot more besides." I mutter quietly.

"Late night last night was it? Found another victim from the red brace brigade?"

Cue laughter.

"Unfortunately not."

"Bloody hell, I've seen more life in a down and out's vest."

"Just a bit tired." I sigh.

He just nods and makes his way to his office, I follow not knowing what to expect.

"If you're finding the going a bit tough, I can always send you back."

"Send me back?"

"If I wanted a parrot for a DI I would've gone down to the pet shop Drake."

"I don't understand, is it that easy?"

He sits down heavily, a little worse for wear from Luigi's the night before.

"Guv?"

"Yeah."

"I just wanna to go home, see my little girl Gene, It's all I want."

He shakes his head softly.

"I'm not stopping you, clear off if that's what you want."

This time I shake my head.

"Alex, you aren't getting along with my men. Here we work as a team, no one person is more dispensable than the other. Each of us is an integral piece of the machine. One faulty part and the whole thing ends up on the scrap heap. Do you follow?"

I nod.

"If you aren't gonna give us 100% then you're going to have to go. It's not one for all and all for one. If you have your own private mission then that's your own business. You are not going to let it interfere with the rest of us."

"I understand that, it's you who doesn't, and you never will, I'm sure you could help me, someone has to in this place! I just can't work it out all on my own!"

"Me and you are worlds apart. I don't think I can work with you, and I had Tyler to put up with."

"Sam was like me! Why can't you see?"

"A pain in the arse, I can see that."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She's gone now, in a poof of perfume and door slamming. But what does she expect? She waltzes in here all hormonal and highly strung and expects me to give her the answers to everything. If I knew the answers to everything I'd be a rich man and not stuck in this shit-heap clearing up the crap the scum leave behind in their wake.

I get lumbered with strange ones in this job. First comes Ray. All fists and facial hair. Chris. I've known worms with more backbone than him. Then there was Tyler. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. He had a stick shoved so far up his arse he'd put a scarecrow to shame. And then there's the birds, the less said about them the better. But it works. For some crazy unknown reason it works. I'll never understand how, it just does. When we're all working our best we're unbeatable. Un-bloody-breakable.

Then along comes Drake. The strangest of them all. She arrives in skirt shorter than Ronnie Corbitt, all wide eyed and diamond encrusted. I don't half get landed with them.

Knock, Knock, Knock

speak of the devil.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

"Come in Drake."

"Guv?"

It's Ray.

"What?"

"Body at thirteen hundred hours. Juicy one hey Chris?" He laughs over his shoulder in the direction of Skelton.

"Jucier than a girl called Lucy eating a packet of juicy fruit."

An awkward silence.

"Shurrup Chris, you ruined it!"

He nods, colouring up slightly, which only deepens when Shaz walks into the room. Those two really are pathetic. It's CID, not a playground.

"Is someone gonna tell me what's going on around here?"

"Someone's found a body in Kingston's factory."

"The drinks one?"

"Yeah. In a vat of orange juice."

"Orange juice?"

"See where I was going with the juicy gag now guv?"

Sometimes I have to wonder whether they really are all there.

"Where's Bolly?"

"Dunno Guv, buggered off with Shaz last time I saw her."

"Granger?"

"Yes Guv."

"Where is my DI?"

"Oh... Urm... I'm not sure Guv."

"Well once you've found her get you and yourself down to Kingston's factory."

"Guv."

She scampers off and returns quickly with Drake.

xxx

"The victim was called Jonathon Perky. Known as Perky not surprisingly."

"Not looking so perky now is he."

The usual accusing look from Drake.

"So, you think it was an accident?" She asks in her polite way.

"Hardly, unless he hit himself round the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object."

Ray rolls over Perky onto his back so we could see his face.

"by 'eck! He looks like he's auditioning for Charlie and The Chocolate factory."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

"You know! Oompa, Loompa, doobidy doo."

He even does the dance.

"Not now Ray." Drake sighs, looking down at Perky sadly.

"He was only a boy."

She was right. He can't have been much older than 19, and had that almost androgynous look about him. He wouldn't have looked out of place as a choir boy in a cathedral.

"Kid lives on his own according to the boss. Has no friends, or family."

"No girlfriend?"

"Not that he knows of."

"I'm guessing Perky here made up for what he lacked in friends with enemies"

"What makes you say that?"

"Well he's dead isn't he Chris?" Alex says impatiently.

.xxx.

It never gets any easier. Perky did had family. They live in the midlands. Piss poor, He'd come down to London to start his degree, but soon dropped out and out of shame couldn't bare to tell his folks he was a failure. He sent them a monthly paycheque with a letter, but hadn't returned to see them in 3 years. They'll be arriving here tomorrow, his poor mum is distraught.

I've never had kids, it's not a huge regret in my life. Some of us are meant to sow our seed, some of aren't. I've never felt the need. It's the main reason why the wife buggered off. The thought horrified me. Lots of mini Gene Genies effing and blinding about the place, the country couldn't take it, and more importantly my heart couldn't take it. Saying that I couldn't even begin to imagine the pain it must bring a parent to know that their kid's bitten the dust. They're a part of you aren't they? It's a part of you that's died. It's the hardest part of the job, it always has been. I've seen a lot of reactions from parents, they're all different. There's hysteria, silence, denial, anger, resentment, all are as difficult to with as one another. I never know what to do.

Drake's good at that emotional stuff.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Their faces are always what stay with you longest. They haunt you more than any ghost ever could. Even if this place is imaginary or not, it's hard. Always so hard. Meeting the mothers, the fathers, wives, husbands. They might have trained me to deal with these situations, but nothing can ever prepare you for how someone will react when they've lost a loved one forever. It's at times like this I think of Molly most. I miss her so much.

This case is a hard one, we looked through Perky's flat, the others using their usual grace and double vigor as ever. Shaz is sticking a vase back together as we speak. There was nothing to suggest that he was in any sort of financial trouble, no drugs, no stolen goods, no threatening letters. Gene's being his patient self as ever, throwing theories around like nobody's business. He's convinced Perky is either a rent boy or a kiddly fiddler which would account for his lack of social acquaintances and why he hadn't moved back in with his parents. He really is preposterous sometimes!

When I was at school there was this gym teacher, Mrs Barthes. Barty. She was insufferable and made my life absolute hell. She was convinced I should be in the netball team, but I had no interest in the game, she and her henchmen were relentless. Her henchmen were called Zoe Phelps and Trina Cooper-Smith. Two hateful little suck ups who were far too engrossed in sticking their heads up Barty's arse to see just how much everyone hated them. They weren't just Barty's golden girls they were terrible bullies too. More than once I saw them teasing the chubby girls, or mocking the poorer girls who were there on scholarships, girls worth twice as much as they were. And because of their loyalty to Barty she'd get them off the hook on anything and everything. That's what they would try and allure me into their little clan. Immunity. I hated them, but they were convinced I was going to be their new best friend, as well as Goal Attack.

I get a horrible sense of de ja vu here at Fenchurch station.

Another lad caught in possession got brought in, was taken out with a broken nose.

"That'll stop him chasing white lines for a bit."

I think he thinks it's the only way he'll get results, using his own henchmen to use brute force to get results, just like Phelps and Cooper-Smith at school. Thinking back, one of them did have a mustache.

I really have to talk to him about his behavior towards the people here, public relations are of utmost importance, if they feel they can't trust us then no-one will talk to us and we'll all be out of a job. It's common sense really. I'll talk to him about it later, once he's had a few drinks, he's usually less hostile then. Hopefully he wont be dormant.

"Bolly you're a bird. You will never understand." His hand slices through the air, his scotch inevitably sloshing on his trousers. "Bugger."

"All I'm asking is for you to tone it down a bit Guv. It's getting to much, it's not you getting the reputation it's Ray."

"Ray's a big boy, he can look after himself." Conscious of the fact he's being talked about a sheepish looking Ray looks over, Gene raises his empty glass at him, half smiling. Ray nods and calls over Luigi to order him another drink.

"I won't be a part of it Gene. I refuse."

"You already are, you work here, you're a part of the team... What's this Luigi? Half measures?" Gene looks at his glass, almost imploringly.

The little Italian blushes slightly and shuffles back off to the bar to top up the glass.

"I don't know who exactly you think you are Gene Hunt, but you certainly are not the boss of me. I am my own woman. I am independent, I am confident, and I always get my own way." The effects of the wine finally taking their toll on me.

"Is that so? I think you'll find I own your arse. I stamped it after all. I am DCI." He emphasises the middle syllable. "Whereas you are my DI... Now where is my drink?" He looked about the bar, his blue eyes twinkling in the warm lighting.

I've noticed that sometimes, just sometimes I just find myself looking at him. Wondering.

He was impressive. This big hulk of man, all cheap shirts and polyester ties, old spice and cigarettes, but somehow he doesn't reek of pathetic old has-been. There still is something there. Something to be salvaged from the ashes of his past. A burning ember of something waiting to be found by the right person. Whoever it is will have an awful lot of history to get through.

I finish my drink, knowing that the conversation was soon to end.

"Are you always this possessive of your DI's, or is it because simply because I'm a woman?"

"I'm not ... Ahhhhhh, thank you Luigi, next time I'd appreciate it if it arrived before Christmas."

"Wine for the lady?"

"No thank you, I think I've had enough for one night."

It's always a bad sign when the only gentleman you know is Italian.


End file.
